Growth and Growth.

Eleven men on a Galilean hillside, listening to their leader. Go and tell all the world, i have all authority, and i'll be with you. All the doubts and worries of the last few days seem like a dream...He's alive, and He's coming with us. It's all going to be ok.

Why did Jesus choose just twelve? You know He could have efficiently disciples a thousand times that number. Why twelve when one was a betrayer? Why not disciple all of Israel, and send them out? Now you're a light to the nations.

The church always works when it's the shepherd boy agains the giant. The church is Ruth, starving and looking for mercy, the church is Esther, casting herself on the mercy of the king, the church is Jeremiah preaching from the sewer, the church is the unpopular kids at Corinth High School. And in that way, the church thrives. Jesus loses about twenty thousand followers in a day in John 6, and then turns to His guys and asks if they're leaving too. He doesn't count gain and loss like we do, His ushers aren't in the balcony counting because the Kingdom of God is not a matter of flesh and blood.

The Kingdom advances as Bibles are opened in caves in northern Iraq. Demons flee as the Gospel is proclaimed from makeshift pulpits in primary schools in southern England. The sick are healed as 'thus saith the Lord,' rings out from a multi million dollar campus in Texas.

Trendy music isn't growing the Church. Neither a light show, or the best kids work in town, or the greatest summer camps, or the newest programs, or the biggest offerings. Those things might grow a church, but not the Church.

The Church grows as one man finds other faithful men to find other faithful men. It always has. Not the rich and the famous, but the poor, the weak, the needy. Men like you and me.

Hungry Beggars

Let me start with a statement: religious activities are only valuable insofar as they open our eyes to Jesus.

By Religious activities i mean things like church attendance, Bible reading, baptism and communion and sharing our faith. They only have as much value as they give us of Jesus. By themselves, sitting in a cathedral/movie theatre/somewhere in between, has no value. By itself, memorizing an old book has little value outside pure aesthetics. Eating and drinking inside that building may fill our stomachs (a tiny bit) but has no value beyond that. Unless...unless we remember, and know, and revive these things as full of meaning, full of blessings, and full of glory. Unless, in other words, these things open our eyes to Jesus.

You should go to church. The more i think about it, and the more i see it, the more i think that your attitude to church is a direct reflection of your attitude towards Jesus. The Bible doesn't tell Christians to go to church any more than it tells us to keep breathing oxygen.

We should read our Bibles. If you ignore your spouse except when you're in trouble no one thinks you have a good marriage. If you only talk to your friends when you need a favour, then they won't be your friends for very long.

You should take part in the ordinances of the church. If you aren't baptised, and skip communion, you probably don't understand the death and resurrection of Jesus. And you need to understand these things.

You should share your faith. How can we say 'look at my new clothes,' or 'did you see that goal,' but never 'do you know Jesus?' We talk about the things we love, we can't help ourselves.

But, none of these things, by themselves, mean a rip if they don't help us to see Jesus. Life is about seeing Jesus. Life is knowing Jesus, as He prays in John 17:3. Growth is about seeing Jesus, as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:17. There's a scene in the first Matrix movie where Neo complains that his eyes hurt. Morpheus tells him that it's because he's using them for the first time. To see Jesus with our ears, eyes and heart is to use them for their purpose. It might hurt for a while. It's supposed to.

So read the Bible. But read it like a hungry beggar who has happened upon a feast, not a detached literary critic, or a 10th grader learning algebra. 'Open my eyes so that i might see wonderful things...'

Commit to seven day a week church life. But not to collect a token, not because you may live in the only corner of the world remaining where people will talk about you if you're not in church. Commit to church because Jesus is committed to church, commit to church because that's where you belong. 'Open my eyes so that i might see wonderful things...'

Be baptised, celebrate communion. But not because 'that's what happens at church,' but because these ceremonies are filled with life and meaning by the risen Lord. Because we have been lifted out of the water, and we must feast on His flesh to live. 'Open my eyes so that i might see wonderful things...'

Share your faith. Tell your friends, and co-workers and neighbors to come with you because you'll do them good. Overflow with Jesus when people ask you about your weekend. So live and so speak that the aroma of Christ floats around you. 'Open their eyes, so they might see wonderful things...'

Christianity is seeing Jesus. Make sure your glasses are on straight.

When the World Laughs

Our Christianity has the appearance of being an adjunct or an appendix to the rest of our lives, rather than the main theme and driving force of our existence. We seem to have a real horror of being different. Hence all our attempts and endevours to popularise the church and make it appeal to people. we seem to be trying to tell people that joining a church will not make them so very different after all.

The world expects Christians to be different and looks to him for something different, and therein shows an insight into his life that regular church-goers often miss. The churches organize whist-drives, bazaars, dramas, fetes and that sort of thing so as to attract people. We are becoming about as wily as the devil himself, but we really very bad at it; all our attempts are hopeless failures and the world laughs at us. Now, when the world persecutes the church, she is performing her real mission, but when the world laughs at her, she has lost her soul. And the world today is laughing at the church, laughing at her and her attempts to be nice and to make people feel at home. My friends, if you feel at home in any church without believing in Jesus as your personal saviour then that church is no church at all, but a place of entertainment or a social club. For the truth of Christianity and the preaching of the Gospel should make the church intolerable and uncomfortable to all except those who believe, and even they should go away feeling chastened and humbled.

Martin Lloyd-Jones, March 20th 1927. From a sermon on Hebrews 13:14

As we prepare for Sunday, are we putting more effort into making the truth known in our towns and cities, or into making sure we get a good crowd of people who feel like we are respectable members of their society? The above quote is not to say that guests are unwelcome at church, (obviously!) but that they shouldn't be comfortable, it shouldn't be like going to a coffee shop with their friends. Something of the almighty and eternal must be bought to be bare on their consciences, something of the unique hope in Christ, or we have failed. If communion, or baptism, or church membership or anything that marks a line between church and world teaches us anything, it is that, in the best way possible, there is no real belonging to a church, until you believe, and when you believe, everything changes.